Ethereum developers have pushed back the highly-anticipated Shanghai hard fork by approximately two weeks. Initially estimated for late March, the Shanghai upgrade will now likely be deployed sometime within the first two weeks of April. The delay was announced at an Ethereum developer meeting on Mar. 2. During the meeting, core developers came to the consensus that the hard fork would occur about a fortnight after the Goerli testnet launch, which has been slated for Mar. 14. The Goerli testnet will be the final dress rehearsal for the Shanghai hard fork before it is rolled out on the mainnet. So …

The price of Ethereum's native token, Ether (ETH), shows a growing conflict among traders about the market direction for March. This uncertainty has resulted in ETH price consolidating inside a narrow sideways range between $1,600 and $1,700 since Feb. 15. 25% ETH price correction on the table in March The uncertainty stems from Ethereum's long-awaited Shanghai upgrade going live some time in March. Several analysts predict Shanghai's token unlock feature, which will enable stakers to withdraw their vested tokens from Ethereum's proof-of-stake smart contract, will trigger a short-term selloff event. The Ethereum PoS smart contract has attracted more than 17.4 …

Liquid staking protocol Lido Finance has pushed the big red button in order to activate a protocol safety feature called "Staking Rate Limit" after more than 150,000 Ether was staked with the protocol in a single day. Lido is a liquid staking solution for digital assets, in this case allowing users to stake Ether (ETH) without them needing to have their tokens locked. When a user deposits Ether, Lido issues them a liquid variant of ETH, known as staked ETH (stETH), giving users staking rewards for each day the tokens are held in their wallets. Lido protocol has registered its …

The Ethereum ecosystem has seen only 226 validators slashed since the launch of the Beacon Chain on Dec. 1, 2022 — amounting to just 0.04% of 524,060 validators, according to an Ethereum core developer. Slashing is a process where a validator breaches the proof-of-stake consensus rules, which often results in the removal of that validator from the network and slashing a portion of the staked Ether (ETH) that the validator provided as collateral. Such slim odds of being slashed were highlighted by Ethereum core developer “Superphiz” in a Feb. 23 Twitter post, which suggests that people shouldn’t be concerned about …

Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko announced the Shapella (Shanghai/Capella) upgrade is scheduled for Feb. 28. The Shapella network upgrade will activate on the Sepolia network at epoch 56832. Shanghai and Capella are the names of the upcoming Ethereum hard fork. Shanghai is the name of the fork on the execution client side, and Capella is the upgrade name on the consensus layer client side. Some of the key Ethereum improvement proposals (EIP) changes on the execution layer include Warm Coinbase and Beacon chain push withdrawals. The push withdrawals will make way for validator withdrawals from the beacon chain to the …

The staking services offered by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase are “fundamentally different” to what was offered by its peer exchange Kraken — which recently came under fire from the United States securities regulator — according to Coinbase's head lawyer. Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, made the comments in his response to a shareholder question regarding its staking services during a Q&A session on the exchange’s fourth-quarter results, noting: “The staking products that we offer on Coinbase are fundamentally different from the yield products that were described in the reinforcement action against Kraken. The differences matter.” The first point of difference …

Since its inception, blockchain technology has found diversified and valuable applications to help boost efficiency and incentivize community participation in different areas and industries. Farming is a sector that can benefit from comprehensive blockchain technology solutions, specifically when it comes to assembling actionable data and making it work to improve small businesses’ operations across several financial and sustainability metrics. By 2050, it is estimated that 10 billion people will inhabit the earth, and agricultural development will be a powerful mechanism to end extreme poverty, facilitate shared prosperity and feed the overall global population. The global agri-food industry is worth an …

The price of Ethereum's native token, Ether (ETH), has surged by more than 40% year-to-date to around $1,750, the highest level in seven months. However, ETH price is not out of the woods yet despite several bullish cues such as the Shanghai upgrade in the pipeline. Ethereum price bull trap? Ether's rise has appeared primarily in the wake of similar upside moves elsewhere in the crypto market, responding to lowering inflation that reduces the Federal Reserve's likelihood of raising interest rates aggressively. At the same time, warnings about an imminent bull trap in the risky markets have emerged, which may …

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell for the third consecutive week but Bitcoin (BTC) price decoupled and is on track to close the week near the strong overhead resistance at $25,211. This suggests that the wider crypto market recovery is on a strong footing. After Bitcoin’s sharp rally from the lows, analysts remain divided in their opinion about the next move. Some traders believe that the current Bitcoin rally will turn down once again, but others expect the momentum to continue, indicating the start of a new bull phase. Chances are that Bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies may continue to …

The CEO of Custodia Bank Caitlin Long has slammed regulators and lawmakers in Washington D.C. for their “misguided crackdown” on the crypto sector, and also for ignoring her warnings of major “fraud” allegedly conducted by now-bankrupted entities. In a Feb. 17 blog post titled “Shame On Washington, DC For Shooting A Messenger Who Warned of Crypto Debacle,” Long tore into the government for its approach to crypto regulation, failing to protect investors and alienating good actors in the space: “Washington’s misguided crackdown will only push risks into the shadows, leaving regulators to play whack-a-mole as the risks continuously pop up …

The upcoming Ethereum (ETH) Shanghai hardfork is slated to occur in March 2023 and the upgrade will cap off the network's move to proof-of-stake (PoS) which started during the “Merge” on Sept. 15, 2022. Once Shanghai is implemented, previously locked Ether will gradually become liquid for the first time since December 2020. According to on-chain Etherscan data, over 16.6 million Ether are currently locked in the PoS staking protocol which was valued at $28 billion on Feb. 16, 2023. Ethereum’s move from proof-of-work (PoW) to PoS has started to achieve the original goal which was to make Ether’s supply deflationary. …

What is the next upgrade for Ethereum? The Shanghai upgrade is a stepping stone toward making the Ethereum blockchain more scalable. Features like sharding, zero-knowledge (ZK)-SNARKs and more, decorate the Ethereum roadmap. The EIPs included in the Shanghai upgrade will be a good step toward achieving sharding later in 2023. Sharding is extremely important to improve higher transaction throughputs as the chain will be able to perform “parallel processing.” Sharding is expected to be achieved in two stages in 2023 and 2024. The first stage brings better data availability to the Ethereum blockchain. Combining that with the rollup feature that …